The U.S. Constitution with Regard to Children, Education, and School
Self-determination is a sacred principle of democracy
The US Constitution with Respect to Children, Education, and School
Do children have a constitutional right to a free quality public education? For our purposes, it will be taken for granted here that the courts have affirmed that all children DO indeed have a right to a free public education. We will also operate here on the assumption that there should be no significant qualitative differences in services offered based on race, gender, class, academic aptitude, or religion. The U.N. established the right in its 1948, “Human Bill of Rights”. That document said unequivocally, “Everyone has the right to an Education”. Could someone please tell the governor of Florida?
It is broadly recognized that sizable differences actually do exist in facilities, salaries, materials, class sizes, teacher qualifications, etc. in schools, especially in relation to certain demographic factors which involve economic status and race among the local populations, and which are periodically, if not continually sources of dispute and dissatisfaction. While that most important right to education is stated and codified in many prominent places, putting it into practice consistently or effectively is another story. We already know that we have major work to do in those areas.
While the Constitution does not make any specific mention of education, the right to an education is ostensibly subsumed under clauses which guarantee the pursuit of happiness and which have been interpreted to assure or infer opportunity, equal protection, general wellbeing, and financial subsistence. Life and liberty include intellectual growth and self-improvement, without question.
However, if public schools had not been established and had not proliferated throughout the nation over an extended period resulting from a national consensus on the necessity for intellectual rigor and academic capabilities, we would surely be asking rather different questions now. It is doubtful that a right to education of any sort would have occurred to anyone if public schools had not been built and staffed with public money and under state auspices long ago.
Take Nothing for Granted
There are some highly relevant related questions that must be asked and answered as a consequence of this revered history, however. These particular thorny questions (below) have been completely overlooked and ignored because of the way schools have evolved and the conceptions which have prevailed there and in the larger culture about these topics. Such questions are especially urgent as children are universally inducted into the social order, whether they are ready, or not (unless they are from rich families or families which have religious school affiliations).
It must be asked, for example, how much inconvenience, discomfort, time and effort, frustration, confusion, bureaucratic red tape, negligence, emotional abuse, or humiliation at school is too much to bear for any given child required to attend? Are there identified limits or standards with respect to imposing these highly misanthropic conditions with a heavy hand? If so, they appear to be well hidden. Please take a second look at that partial list if there are any doubts that these things are part of the school experience for a majority of students at least much of the time.
A follow-up question would be to ask what reasons are given for the failure to protect from these systemic issues and endemic problems associated with herding children into stifling classrooms and keeping them confined for several hours a day for 180 days per year (give or take) for 12 often insufferable years, often against considerable resistance? Research studies proliferate with increasing frequency and routinely begin with a frank acknowledgement of grave issues needing a resolution and the researcher’s commitment to focusing on and offering potential solutions to these many well-identified chronic problems and others.
Equally important and relevant is the question of how education is defined and measured. What constitutes a minimum of whatever it is (arbitrarily) determined to be? Who is to be trusted with such a crucial mission?
The word, “education” implies a level of knowledge and skill and a well-rounded and comprehensive capacity for intellectual achievement. Yet, I defy anyone to produce a truly definitive answer to the question; “what is education?”, which can be applied across the board. No two people share the same perceptions regarding education when we begin to drill down to basics and specifics. The range of beliefs and ideas surely borders on the infinite.
Also, we must ask about the legions of students who seem to be lacking in those attributes listed above (knowledge and skill and a well-rounded and comprehensive capacity for intellectual achievement). It must also be asked how and to whom responsibility should be assigned if a minimum level or quality of “education” has not been achieved after some period of time? Must the student always be the one solely blamed? Is there ever any meaningful way to place blame on any individual or group within the institution or on the administrators or officials, pray tell?
Possibly an even more crucial question, however, is what the remedy or compensation should be for a child who has been materially harmed in school and by the experience when such harm is documented? Are there mechanisms by which it can be determined for any given child that the benefits of schooling outweigh all the negatives, such as confusion and neglect, hundreds of hours wasted in unproductive activities or in limbo (because of distractions, inadequate preparation, unscheduled events, other students requiring attention, etc., etc.), or extreme boredom, cynicism, and demoralization? To deny that many children suffer much more than mere inconvenience and ordinary moments of monotony is to live in an alternate universe totally unknown to students.
What about inappropriate discipline, errors in evaluations, lapses resulting in inadequate comprehension because of scheduling pressures, misleading test results, etc., etc. Has Pandora’s box just been opened?
It can safely be declared here and now that we have not yet started to reduce effectively to a minimal amount the chaos and mayhem in our public (or private) schools, let alone achieving something approximating excellence. Yet student complaints are rarely heard by adults and even less often acted upon.
It is no small injury either, when a child, often of a tender age, is alienated from one or both parents by negative reports and subjective evaluations from the school. Children’s characters are routinely assassinated by statements accusing them of “not performing up to their potential”, “not making enough of an effort”, “being too social in class, i.e., talking to classmates”, “being too easily distracted”, “laziness”, and “lacking self-control and discipline”, etc., etc. The reader probably recalls a few others from personal experience.
The awful dread felt by students of what their parent’s reaction will be to uncomplimentary reports sent home by teachers in this fear-based system is well known to millions of children since schools were established. Smacking hands with a wooden ruler is no longer permitted in most schools. Do they still penalize the kids for chewing gum or daydreaming?
We are all quite familiar with the drill. Students are indeed fortunate if they escape the intense pressure felt from being placed in an ever-tightening vise between the demands and expectations of their teachers and those of their parents, sooner or later in their extended school career. Low grades, red-penciling, and critical comments on report cards and papers have gotten many a child in serious trouble at home, often leading to conflict, severe discipline, and threats.
It is not at all unusual for these things to escalate to profound disruptions, recriminations, and even suicides. The schools then typically resort to blaming the parents or casting aspersions about parents who are “not involved in the child’s education”. The actual causes of the negative behaviors or evaluations need not be discovered more often than not, as no one other than the student suffers any consequences, and the kid is lectured or chastised and sent back to class.
The judgments of the adult authority figures are almost always taken for granted, while the vulnerabilities and perceptions of the child are bulldozed by the machine. The child is not equipped to understand the cause and natural basis for his or her issues and problematic behaviors and could not articulate them or would not be heard if they did. Indifference and casual cruelties are the usual consequence, while the child seldom has any support to lessen the damage to ego and the pain and discomfort acutely felt, other than one or two peers who are in the same boat.
Children are Not Just Miniature Adults or Property: They Are Real People
Should adults ever choose to concern themselves that children’s rights are being violated in school, they might ask specific questions about that when the children enjoy circumstances where they feel unconstrained and not worried about retaliation or punishment for speaking their minds honestly. It is doubtful that any of us has grown up around schools without hearing ditties and songs or poems such as the one which I recall from seventy years ago as, “No more school, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks”, or ones about burning down the schoolhouse and others of a similar nature.
This is not inconsequential. For every favored child who seriously claims to love school, there are three or four who seriously detest it, much if not all of the time. This has not changed in seventy years.
In fact, many major empirical studies have been conducted with scientific rigor on a large scale which have sampled how students feel with a variety of measures of their common disdain. Words to describe school, such as “unfair”, “jail or prison”, “hypocritical”, “a big joke”, “intensely boring”, and “miserable” are a few commonly seen and heard. One need only use ordinary search terms to find ‘school climate studies’, studies of ‘student attitudes or lack of engagement’, ‘student alienation’, ‘student motivation’, student apathy’, ‘stress in school’, ‘school discipline’, etc.
Dr. Peter Gray, an esteemed child psychologist has written that “School is Prison”, and his bold assertion is very substantially validated in his extensive and eloquent writing. His answer to the question of why kids do not like school is that they love freedom.
If students lack freedom, which is an unmistakable fact, and if freedom is an essential ingredient for an adequate education, which it certainly is, then it is wrong and foolish to deny that their rights have not been violated. And for what? For a less than mediocre “education” for millions (literally millions) which does not deserve either the description ‘mediocre’ or ‘education’ if we are honest? The graduates, the drop-outs, and the nation are no better off as a result.
Now, we are learning that relationships truly do matter. Popular psychologist and influencer, Adam Grant reports recently in the New York Times (“What American Schools Do Wrong”, 10/22/23) and on television shows that studies reveal that keeping a teacher together with the same set of students over multiple years has more positive long-term benefits for intellectual progress and success than cycling groups and classes annually.
To the utter amazement of most of the people involved with schools, Grant emphasizes that the correlation does not come from the great skill, talent, or genius of some particular set or category of teachers. The difference is the familiarity with and the degree of information and knowledge about those students by those teachers, even for teachers who have not been named as outstanding in any way. Relationships are critical.
Surprise, surprise! So, why were the astute observations and study results of professionals such as Dewey, Holt, Goodman, Postman, and many others telling everyone who would listen about the significance of relationships and comfort levels not taken seriously and implemented fifty or one-hundred years ago? They all tried to impress on everyone that relationships were of utmost importance. Everyone praised them, and then everyone went right on doing things as they had been doing them for decades – all wrong. They kept putting lipstick on the pig and pretending that nothing was fundamentally wrong or that reform was in the works.
The answer to the question of why great things were put off and sidelined or allowed to fizzle out is clear. Educators did make regular serious attempts to put those kinds of policies and practices into effect. They were stymied at every turn, in every instance. The “reforms”, changes, innovations, and efforts to turn the ship around were invariably short-lived.
The reason for the immoveable impediments to change was that, in an authoritarian paradigm established by law and requiring conformity and control, the real and positive relationships required in a more functional environment are not possible. Nurturing and supportive relationships conflict directly and continually with the zeitgeist of a power-based, controlling system. Under coercive and compulsive laws, the power must ALWAYS be retained and enforced by those at the top. The gears must keep turning, regardless of the interests and needs of either students or teachers.
Justifying the Unjustifiable
Granted, there is a presumed national interest in the education of the populace. Our strength lies in our people and in their awareness, knowledge, and competence. There is real competition between nations and continents. Much of our wealth and progress has come from scholarly research and creative genius. Educated citizens are better citizens.
Children are always without doubt in need of supervision, instruction, guidance, discipline, and various kinds of care and nurturance because of their lack of experience, knowledge, and maturity. Education is crucial in building better futures for each of them. Few will ever doubt this. This, however, does not justify a single moment or incident of abuse or neglect. There is simply NO need to subject children to intolerable conditions and extreme dissatisfaction on the altar of academic or “educational” achievement.
Nothing justifies extreme or sustained injury and a denial of rights and protections. Even if a child is being educated somehow and accumulating lots of gold stars or high praise in the process, there is no excuse for the infliction of either psychological, emotional, or physical stress, pain, and suffering, or the breaking of that child’s or another child’s spirit. Demoralization and discouragement are never a legitimate part of the deal. Extreme anxiety is an iatrogenic disease of schooling itself brought about through false expectations and unrealistic demands.
It is common practice on the part of school critics (and there are many!) to point to the profound incongruities and adversities experienced by low-income and minority students. Discrimination is baked into a top-down competitive cake. Where there are winners, there will be losers. But the parallel stress, demoralization, and damage done by the untenable demands of teachers and by abstraction and memory work substituting for meaningful learning in the schools in highly affluent districts is also phenomenal and deplorable.
Some of the best accounts of the price paid for competition and hard-driving “motivational” techniques in traditional upper class schools are spelled out beautifully (but sadly) in Kirsten Olson’s book, “Wounded by School”. These victims, if they survive, go on to win the rat race but likely have lost their humanity. Being enrolled in the “best” schools is no guarantee of protection from over-achieving, demanding, or sadistic teachers. Many other references showing these harmful effects throughout districts and economic strata are readily available.
When Citizens are Not Treated as Citizens Based on Age and Status
The US Constitution does not distinguish between adults and children. Any person of any age born in the US is a citizen with all the rights, privileges, and protections of any other. The state’s interest in education must be secondary to the child’s constitutional birthrights (including the right to an authentic and personally rewarding education). The state has no claim to the right or the ability to dictate what is or is not education for private citizens.
No employee, executive, or official of the state or of the federal government has any claim to some qualification or select training to be able to define and assure education for any individual citizen merely because that citizen conforms and complies. Education is ineffable. It cannot be produced, proscribed, predicted, or premeditated somehow from outside. It cannot be accurately measured with fine-tuned tests.
Likewise, the state has no business subjecting any citizen to some arbitrary and always subjectively formulated process for twelve years, or for even one year, which process restricts movement and freedom and which has the potential to inflict serious or irreparable injury. Bona fide human behavioral scientists have clearly proven over generations that sitting in classrooms doing busy work and listening to droning lectures does not constitute education.
There are people who do not value education in the way most do, or at all. There are people who fear that education somehow detracts from or turns people away from their faith in a god and religion. There are people who value experience and physical work over cerebral activity, intellectual exercise, or education. Everything possible should be done to minimize the influence of such people in our society for the sake of peace and progress. No one values education more than this writer.
Nevertheless, the state should NEVER be in the business of trying to force any of those relatively rare people or their children to participate in programs, conditioning, or indoctrination or to declare, without validation bureaucratic cookie-cutter programming to be education, based on specious claims and specific idiosyncratic conceptions of truth, knowledge, and wisdom. Surviving sixteen years of schooling and passing hundreds of inane tests is not documentation proving that someone is equipped to cram education into another human's brain.
The passage of laws compelling school attendance opened Pandora’s box in the mid-19th century. Children are indeed alienated from parents, despite valiant attempts by some educators to forestall that from happening. Children will always find themselves in stressful positions under such a paradigm because children are inherently offended by control and excessive limits on their mobility. They will always have limited tolerance for constant close evaluation and scrutiny because their potential is unknowable and their confidence is still tenuous. And they will always need time, space, privacy, and opportunity to develop and express their curiosity and explore their surroundings and culture, undisturbed and uncoerced, because they are not computers or mere recorders of information.
We have become completely inured to the abuse of students. It is commonly seen as a necessary and legitimate part of some initiation ritual or rite of passage for busy students to become frustrated, humiliated, overwrought and over-worked with exercises and homework, and to become thoroughly cynical about life.
Unfair discipline or a victim of favoritism? Family problems or personal vicissitudes got in the way of finishing your book report? Having a bad day? Someone is bullying you during recess? Tough luck. No excuses. No mercy. How will you ever become a CEO making millions if you are allowed to slack off? What a sad commentary on the life of so many real and struggling people.
No small part of education must be to teach, primarily through demonstration, distinctions between right and wrong, justice and injustice, liberty, and repression. Children know intuitively, even if adults have forgotten, that it is wrong to be force-fed information, to be cooped up inside for hours daily, denied adequate fresh air through deep breathing, movement, and exercise, and to be kept in subservience to people whose main goal is to control and program them to become something they may not wish to become. Hours ago, I heard a TED Talk on the radio while driving on the essential benefits to brain, mental, and psychological functioning of regular physical movement and exercise.
Compulsory attendance laws were never going to benefit children or educate them. Those laws are injurious and unconstitutional on their face. They MUST be eradicated for the sake of democracy. Where is the ACLU when we need them?
If mollifying and pacifying the entire population by using behavioral modification and obedience training for 12 years under the guise of education with the consequence that half the population is educated to an elementary level or lower and half is becoming neurotic and asocial is the best we can get from our Supreme Court, perhaps we should do away with the Supreme Court altogether. They obviously have not read Dewey, Tolstoy, or the thousands of other authors who know something about education and about children.
If the High Court will sacrifice the independence and competence of a huge contingency of the nation’s youth to maintain the status quo and the capitalist, corporate, plutocratic power structure, leading us to a place where fascism is in vogue and entertainment, fake news, and conspiracy theories take precedence over real knowledge and information, then why not just make it official with a dictator, after all? Democracy is nothing when children are of so little significance and so vulnerable to indoctrination in a rigid paradigm.
Why not let white superiority and Christian nationalism rule if we are so determined to be ruled by illegitimate and arbitrary authority? We lost our faith in children and in the people as adult citizens and parents when we put schooling in the hands of the state and called it education.
The state may be well-equipped to govern on many matters having to do with the whole nation and international affairs. However, no state can be trusted with the usurpation of parenting or teaching and curriculum design, or deciding the minutiae of philosophy, citizenship, or education for individual citizens. Self-determination is a sacred principle of democracy. Please write that fact down and try not to forget it.